Card Check: Undermining Secret Ballots

Imagine walking into the voting booth to cast your ballot. All of a sudden, from over your shoulder comes a voice, saying, “So you’re voting, huh? Better vote our way. Or else.”

Intimidating? You bet. An invasion of your privacy? You bet. But that’s just the kind of elections some labor unions want to impose on America’s workers.

Under current law, if a union wants to organize a business, they are required to get a certain percentage of employees to sign cards calling for a private, union election. That election then features secrets ballots, preserving the privacy of the employee’s vote.

But now, unions like the AFL-CIO are pushing Congress to approve what’s called a “card check” system.

Organizers simply collect a simple majority of employee signatures. A simple majority, that’s all that it takes, and bingo! You’ve got a union shop. No election. No secret ballot… But lots of potential for intimidation and coercion along that path.

America’s great tradition of the secret ballot is designed to protect an individual’s freedom of choice, to allow people to vote their conscience.

The “card check” legislation being considered by Congress would destroy those protections for America’s workers.

Our country defends free elections all around the world. This is no time to abandon them at home.